>> if they get filtered and get turned down for the states for medicare determination that would be opportunity to also inquire about interest itself, or actually frankly to look at snape information and sick are you already participating? if you are, which many of the people who are below 133% of poverty in the state will be, you may not need to ask for any

additional information. many low income families don't file taxes, so the information, because they're not required to, they may not be required to file taxes. so snap information may be available in a way that you can fast-track their medicaid eligibility determination because they provided recent information to the snap agency picks i don't think that, that really complicates the opportunities for cordoning between snap and medicaid significantly. >> thank you very much. i am going to give our panelists an opportunity if any of you have closing remarks you would like to jump in with before rapid a. okay, thank you all very much for coming. [applause]

>> today, "washington journal" looks at ohio as a battleground state. >> these are the stories left, great stress but real people in american history, very important moments in american history that we don't know that. the first pilgrims in america came 50 years before the mayflower sailed. they were french. they made wind. they are the good sense to live in florida in june instead of december in massachusetts, but then they were wiped out by the

spanish. we completely let the story out of the textbooks. the most famous woman in america was taken captive by indians 6095, marched up in new hampshire. in the middle of the night she killed her captor, realized she could get a penalty for scalps, indian scouts. she went back, scalp them, made her way to boston where she was a heroin. they erected a statute to are. the first statute to an american woman, shows her with a hatchet in one hand and a scalpel in another. kenneth davis is our guest on sunday on in depth. the best selling author of the don't know much series. watch live at an eastern booktv on c-span2. >> now a group of american diplomats and former ambassadors advised the next administration to focus its foreign policy effort on issue. former ambassador to iraq chris

hill said political gridlock is hurting u.s. foreign policy objectives. and asian policy is a good place to rebuild i partisanship to the discussion is just under two hours. >> thank you all for being here this afternoon, and welcome to georgetown university. we've come together today for a special conversation, a conversation between top diplomats, past and present, each of whom has played a significant role in u.s. asia relations over the past two decades. with representatives from the administrations of george h. w. bush through the current administration of barack obama, our guest speakers today offer their expertise and experience as a look back on the use of service and look forward to the future of u.s.-asia relations. wish to offer my gratitude to

georgetown's asian studies program, our school of foreign service, and the korea economic institute who have partnered to bring together some of our countries most respected minds on foreign policy and asia. we are deeply grateful to doctor victor cha a professor in government and asian studies and director of asian studies here in georgetown. carol lancaster, our dean of the school of foreign service, and doctor abraham kim, the interim president of the korea economic institute, for making this event possible. were also aren't up with is representative of the department of education, and we thank the department for its recognition of our asian studies program title vi, national resources center for east asia. it's fitting we gather today for this conversation just days before the presidential election. the topic of our discussion will

take on increasing importance for our president in the next four years. secretary of state hillary clinton who offered a foreign policy address on this very stage just two weeks ago has written in foreign policy about the growing significance of the u.s. asian relationship. she wrote, one of the most important tasks of american statecraft over the next decade will be to lock in a substantially increased investment, diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise in the asia-pacific region. the secretary went on to describe the work ahead. success requires maintaining and advancing a bipartisan consensus on the importance of the asia-pacific to our national interests. we seek to build upon a strong tradition of engagement by presidents and secretaries of

state, of both parties, across many decades. the breath and tenor of leadership, diplomatic work across many years and spending both political parties at our panelists represent today. and it's the work that georgetown has committed itself to pursuing to the expanding work of our asian studies program, and several other programs across our campus, that explore through teaching scholarship of research, the vibrant economic cultural and social life of asia. it's the only title vi national resource center for east asia located in our nation's capital. we have unique opportunity to connect our students with a groundbreaking research and hands-on experience and policy planning and implementation. our commitment to advancing asian studies includes our asian studies certificate for

undergraduate students, are masters of arts degree in asian studies, student and faculty partnerships and exchanges in our law asia program. in clinical and community medicine experiences, for our fourth year medical students in china, the philippines and nepal. it's in this context that we are honored to host such a distinguished panelists for a conversation of great national and global importance. i want to thank our panelists for joining us this afternoon. i'd like to offer my gratitude again to all of you for being here. it's now my honor to introduce dr. abraham kim, the interim president of the korea economic institute and our cohost this afternoon. a leading analyst, researcher and advisor, dr. kim has served as research manager of government services, principled real -- korea analyst at the global consulting firm, eurasia

group. at eurasia, dr. kim managed a group of analysts and u.s. government research projects covering issues such as international trade, political stability and emerging markets, and the global financial market. he is also worked to develop new systems to integrate social media and data visualization tools with social science, analysis. his writing has appeared in the asian "wall street journal," foreign policy, he's been interviewed by major news organizations around our world. it's my pleasure to welcome to the stage here in gaston hall, dr. kim. [applause] >> thank you for your kind introduction, president john degoiia. the korea economic institute is very honored to be a cosponsor of the distinguished panel of

the united states current and past assistant secretaries of state for east asian and pacific affairs. i can think of no better partners than the edmonds school of foreign services and president john degoiia and georgetown university to share this unique platform to explore the future of the united states policies in the asia-pacific. i really do think that the 21st century will be seen as an asia-pacific century, much of the economic dynamism and growth will emerge from this region. and, of course, many of the toughest global challenges as well. the rise of china, the prospects of asian economic integration, and, of course, the security problems on the korean peninsula, to name a few. u.s. leadership in continuous engagement in this region will be critical in these and many more issues ahead. as the president of the economic institute, i think the

tremendous past contribution of these notable assistant secretaries of state to the u.s.-korea relationship. but more broadly their tireless efforts to ensure security, stability and prosperity in asia pacific region during the tenure. we look forward to your insights as you discuss about the future, and thank you again to dean carol lancaster, president degoiia, and, of course, georgetown university for cohosting this timely event. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. and again, i want to than thanke lancaster school of foreign service, president degoiia and the korea economic institute for helping us put together this event today, forging a consensus, u.s.-asia policy for the next administration. my name is victor cha, a professor here and director of asian studies.

and what i do, particularly for law students in the audience, is fully introduce our for panelists because you understand why we think that this is such a great event. so i will start with kurt campbell. kurt campbell as you all know has been the assistant secretary of state for east asian affairs, east asian and pacific affairs since 2009 for president barack obama. previously, he was ceo and cofounder of the center for a new american security and concurs us director for the aspen strategy group co-chairman of the editorial board of the washington quarterly. he was the founder of strapped asia and strategic advisory firm, and with the senior vice president, director of international security program and henry a. kissinger chair in national security policy at csis. he is also an associate professor of public policy and international relations at the kennedy school of government and an assistant director of the center for science and international affairs at harvard

university. doctor campbell has served in several capacities in government including his deputy assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific, director of the national security council staff, deputy special counsel to the president and the white house, and why do so at the department of treasury. for his service he received the department of defense medals for distinguished metal service and for outstanding public service. user doesn't officer in the u.s. navy, the joint chiefs of staff, and chief of naval operations special intelligence unit. doctor campbell received his ba from university of california san diego, certificate in music and political philosophy from the university and soviet armenia, and his doctorate in international relations from oxford university what he was a marshall scholar. to my any of his richard solomon who is the assistant of state for for east asia and pacific affairs in 1989-1982 for

president george h. w. bush. he served as president of united states institute of peace since 1993 during which time he oversaw its growth into a center of international conflict management analysis in applied programs. during his service in government doctor solomon negotiate the cambodia peace treaty, the first united nations permanent peacemaking agreement, a leading role in a dialogue commission issues between the united states and the koreans. helped establish aipac, the asia-pacific economic cooperation initiative ambiguous negotiations, japan, mongolia and vietnam on important bilateral issues. in 1992-93, doctor solomon shoulda susan glasser to the philippines recorded the closure of the u.s. naval bases and the new framework bilateral and regional security cooperation. doctor solomon praises service director policy planning at the department of state and is a

senior staff member of the national security council. he was award for state farm's foreign affairs award for public service and his receive torture policy initiatives and the governments of korea and thailand. in 2005 tuesday the american political science association's hubert h. humphrey career award for notable public service by a political scientist. dr. solomon started his career as a professor at the university of michigan and also served as the head of the political science department at the rand corporation. he holds a ph.d with a specialization in chinese policy from mit. to my far right is winston lord. winston lord serve as the assistant secretary of state from 1993-1997 for president bill clinton he has bush really served as co-chairman of the overseers of the international rescue committee, the largest non-sectarian organization that

helped refugees abroad and resettle some in the united states. he has had a long career of bipartisan service in the u.s. government, a special assistant to the national security advisor he accompanied henry kissinger on his secret visit to china and president nixon on his historic opening in early 1970s, as well as subsequent trips by president ford and dr. kissinger. from 1985-1989, he served as the u.s. ambassador to beijing under presidents reagan and bush. ambassador lord's other key government assignments were as state department took a policy planning, from 1973-77, and in defense state department in the 1960s. in between these posts he has helped him and headed in variety of private organizations related to international affairs. as well as chairman of the national endowment for democracy, and chairman of the carnegie endowment national commission on america in the

world. ambassador lord and a ba from him like an m.a. from fletcher. he received several honorary degrees, the state department distinguished honor award and the defense department's outstanding performance award. to my far left is christopher hill. christopher hill served as assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs from 2005-2009 for president george w. bush and barack obama. is currently being of the joseph corbett old school of international studies at denver university. ambassador hill is a grim number of the foreign service and his prior appointments include u.s. ambassador to iraq from 2009-2010, and u.s. ambassador to the republic of korea. on february 14, 2005, he was named as head of the u.s. delegation for six-party talks on the north korean nuclear issue. previously ambassador hill served as u.s. ambassador to poland from 2000-2004, u.s.

ambassador to republic of macedonia, 96-99, and special envoy to kosovo from 98-99. he also served as special assistant to the president and senior director for south european affairs on the national security council. ambassador hill received the state department's distinguished service award for his contribution as a member of the u.s. negotiating team in the bosnia peace settlement, and was a recipient of the robert s. frazier award for peace negotiations for his work on the kosovo crisis. prior to joining the foreign service, ambassador hill served as peace corps volunteer in cameroon. he graduated with a ba in economics, received a masters degree from the naval war college in 1994. ladies and gentle and i would just like to take a moment to recognize these gentlemen for all the work they have done for the united states in asia and around the world. so if we could just give them a round of applause.

[applause] >> we are going to have a little bit of the conversation about different issues in asia, and i will start with a few questions. will then go to the audience later on in the hour to entertain your questions as well. so gentlemen, the first question i'd like to start with is a question about asia as a strategic priority. and the question i would ask is, as assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs, each of you were among our country's highest-ranking policymakers on issue. and so in retrospect, i would ask him what was your biggest challenge? aside from the brutal travel schedule. what was your biggest challenge making policy, in particular, how did you were president viewed asia as a strategic

priority? maybe we can start with kurt. >> first of all, thank you there to come and thank you to georgetown, colleagues and friends. ics only people around the audience. you honor us all for being here and it's great to be with such distinguished gathering and friends of all, so thank you, victor. look, you know, i think all of us faced near you to challenges in these jobs that i would just list a couple. i think it was a broad recognition at the beginning of the obama administration when chris was initially serving, that he was we were perhaps overinvested in terms of our engagements in the middle east and south asia. these were important. they were necessary, but that we needed to diversify and perhaps focus more of our time and attention on what would become what i think all of us argue,

the main primary focus of diplomacy of the 21st century in the asia-pacific region. now, it is sometimes said by a few that we are back in asia, and others have said that we have never left. they are both true, and it certainly specs they are both false. in fact, for us to be successful in asia were going to have to do much more over a much longer sustained period. i like very much the we started, victor, focusing on bipartisanship. bipartisanship is not just important during electoral seasons but it's important always, making sure that there's a sustained commitment to stronger engagement. will be probably the essential future of our success going forward. secondly, it is also the case that we have always been here in the asia-pacific region, but we have to build on the foundation that we have established over decades. to ensure that we are appropriately engaged on

multilateral affairs, on our critical bilateral security and partnerships, and on the accumulations with the big states in asia, like china, india, indonesia. so the challenges are enormous. frankly, the strong leadership from the white house, secretary clinton. we've been able to do a lot, and i think build on some remarkable achievements of the previous administration, including opening to india. i would say so those are the opportunities. ironically for me the biggest challenges are the personal ones. i had a wife was also a senior administration official, and we have young children. and trying to balance figuring out how to be in certain places when you've got pressing either international or domestic kind of family business is remarkably difficult to there's a let down

when you're not there for certain things, or the embarrassment when you're diplomatic interlocutor on the phone here's your daughter screaming at the top of her lungs as your trying to negotiate some aspect of an agreement. so i would say, victor, with -- i'm not the one screaming. it's my daughter. [laughter] although it has happened the other way around. so i would say, you know, it's been remarkable as you're going through each of our resumes and experiences. it's been an incredible ride. it's a wonderful thing. this is one of those jobs that i think only a few of us understand when you go out in the region, you are the guy, you're able to do a lot of stuff in the way that perhaps in washington you can't. but it's been a great honor. it's been a wonderful set of opportunities. it is daunting, a constant challenge, the poll of different

time zones, but overall i think the opportunities and the excitement have outweighed the burdens. >> first of all, victor, you put together a terrific exercise in the nostalgics. and my fading brain cells required me to start reading some of the books and papers that were part of my experience. i was confirmed as assistant secretary of state one week after -- so the challenge of the george herbert walker bush administration was the effort to salvage what had been and still is viewed as a relationship of tremendous strategic value to the united states. there's some interesting dynamics. right after tiananmen, of course there is officials were making comments. there was one slight

misstatement out of the state department about the ending exchanges with china, which made it look like is going to last forever but, in fact, it was designed as a short-term comment. but it produced a brouhaha and led to the china policy be managed out of the white house by and as secretary of state baker like to say, the china desk officer was the guy in the white house. as you may remember, president bush had made his first trip abroad right after his election to china. he served as head of the liaison office, so this was a very personal relationship to him. and he wanted to try to keep it alive, despite the tremendous domestic and international uproar after tiananmen. what that led to was, first as you may recall, a secret trip that national security advisor brent scowcroft and deputy

secretary larry eagleburger undertook a few weeks after tiananmen down and then a few months after that there was an open trip. and those were an effort to engage deng xiaoping and other leaders to try to find a way to stabilize this relationship. well, it produced a tremendous domestic backlash, and in the way the television in place of that, you remember the image of her and scowcroft toasting premier league on, a man who did not evoke very warm and fuzzy feelings in united states and lead to even greater pressure on the relationship. so from my point of view, i sure hope it's introduction pointed out -- [laughter] i was framed in chinese victor of us going to be out of the china business. but again in the ironic ways

that public service works, i probably did the most useful things that i did in my career in government, apart from contributing some mouth poetry to president nixon's speeches and presentations of china. by negotiating several key agreements with the chinese through the united nations security council. the effort to normalize or in the conflict over cambodia had begun before the tiananmen incident, and the five permanent members of the security council, which the united states had won, had already begun a negotiating process it and so, for two years i worked with four other members of the security council, the chinese very much being one. and what ended up producing one

instance where all members of the permanent members of the security council actually produced a peace agreement. so that was a very unexpected and gratifying outcome. the other interesting thing, secretary baker fell in love with mongolia, and maybe a way of tweeting the chinese can he was traveling all around china when the relationship was frozen. and on august 1, 1991, we were in, trying to build on this relationship at a just opened up, in this circumstance with the soviet union had collapsed. during the middle of our negotiations, word came that saddam hussein had invaded kuwait. so we all hopped on a plane breaking off the diplomacy with the mongols. we flew to moscow where president bush was talking to soviet leaders. and i was then instructed to fly

back to beijing and gain the support of the chinese for security council resolution, supporting an intervention in support of kuwait. flight, first class flights are something less than first class, but of all the traveling that one does when you serve the region that's -- turned out very worthwhile. so the real challenge of mike reed as assistant secretary was trying to salvage this relationship. looking back, 1989 you could say was the end of the beginning. the beginning being a nixon breakthrough, but tiananmen have so seriously wounded the relationship, that the level of

distrust that we live with today and our relations with china was really derivative of the tiananmen incident. so beginning of the and, hopefully it was only the end of the beginning, and maybe we'll see this relationship lived through against troubled waters. thank you. >> ambassador lord, ambassador lord, the hardest part of this whole event was getting ambassador lord here from new york today because of all the difficulties in new york, but thank you for joining us. biggest challenge is, what do you remember the most speak with first, a footnote. deck just mentioned he was an ongoing and 91. three years later i was in mongolia as assistant secretary writing on a camel in the movie deficit in february. and he was still mad about the trip when i talked to him. anyway, i'm glad to be here. sandy did not keep me awake at and to with colleagues with whom i've shared many professional

and personal experiences. [inaudible] a quick note on the role of assistant secretary of state, i don't know how my colleagues feel, but of all the jobs i've had i thought that was the most demanding in the most challenging. the most dramatic was being with henry kissinger on a lot of escapades. the most fun with him ambassador to but the most grueling i believe was assistant secretary. i have both a macro and micro example of challenges, but with time i will say that china road goes was a macro challenge. we can come back to that because that was quite a challenge during my time in office. the macro one is really shared by all of us. that is to get the attention of this region that it deserves. now, every regional assistant secretary tries to do that from a parochial standpoint.

in our case at least in the last two decades, the fact it's so important that it was virtually true. so it wasn't just parochial. i'm going to be going when we talk about the present administration's policy because i say this behind campbell's back, i'm not looking for a job, they did a fabulous job. they have had the fetish of becoming crystal clear the importance of asia both in economics and security terms. i was determined when i came in in 1993, started to help overcome the eurocentrism of american foreign policy, which was justified in many ways, of course. and, of course, the occupation of other areas including the middle east. because i did feel this was a crucial area for american national interest. so my confirmation statement making very uneasy the assistant secretary for congressional relationships, supposed to give a the ninth statement, i set out

a 10-point plan. i called searching for pacific community and 10 goals. i was pushing the envelope policy even before i was confirmed. but i was determined from the beginning to try to raise the profile of this region. i said in my statement that this was an early night, no region is more important, and i said in the 21st century, no region be as important. we were lucky with the calendar. when we came in in 93, a g7 meeting that year was in tokyo. so the president first overseas trip in japan, we had in korea. we also worth host to transfix in seattle -- apec and we worked on the presidential level. we did not battle and to show the importance of the region in economics and regional cooperation, but i figured that

if he had an aipac meeting every which we word, that meant the president had to go to asia every year. secretary of state and treasury have to go. also figured regional security architects the arsenal regional phone, we brought in china, india and russia. again, secretary of state would have to go two or three times a year. we also articulate we would maintain our force levels. we got off to a good start. but i can only say that we partially succeeded in elevating the importance of asia. partly because even i was at the time in his and other economies was coming, was not crystal-clear as it is today. and partly because secretary and the president kept getting dragged akin to other issues. you asked about the presence the. he thought the issue was important. he realized the importance of trade and so on.

the first couple years of his initiation of clinton focus on the domestic economy which by the what was the most single important thing you can do for your foreign policy, above all today. so, and christopher spent a lot of time in asia and went out, secretary christopher, to the region, but he often would get subsumed in the bosnia crisis. we have somalia and haiti and other crises in the middle east. and so although we raise the profile, i don't think we were able to succeed, certainly as kurt campbell has succeeded, i have great admiration. i would make one final comment on the china roller coaster because we all had this experience. it affected me personally. in 93, without getting into details, we don't have the time, undergo she with leaders of the house and the senate a deal to link -- [inaudible] trading

human rights are a moderate deal was doable. in my view. it was so successful at the time, that i became a hero, and towards the end of 93, together with some other accomplishments, i was one of the last two remaining candidates to be deputy secretary of state. scowcroft was picked and was a terrific choice, the right choice. flash forward six months. partly because of president clinton's fault, his economic cabinet didn't like linking trade to human rights, under cut the deal be done. the chinese saw the disarray in our, and had no incentive. and the president -- [inaudible] and it was very unfortunate. so when this deal fell apart i went from being almost from number two in state to at any moment is going to be fired. that's the way is when you're in

government. happy to say, to cut the short, that -- [inaudible] not only this one, the visit of the taiwan president unofficially, the taiwan fiscal crisis a couple years later, we ended up in the final year very successfully got the relationship back on track, set up a series of summits in our president. so it all ended well, but it does underline the pendulum swing you feel both substantive policy terms and in personal career terms. >> ambassador hill, also thank you for joining us coming in from denver despite all the logistics created by sandy. biggest challenges speak with first of all, there was no challenge coming in from denver. 68 and sunny but it's been like that the last couple of weeks. i don't know what the fuss is. [laughter] no, but let me just say what a pleasure it is to be back here, and thank you so much for

putting this together. and looking at any audience here, i feel like a lot of people i work with during those days, and as we talk about the sort of onerous and sometimes oldies job of assistant secretary, one thing that made a lot better was you have extreme of talented people you work with. those are people who really make the job easier and, in fact, made a job in joyful at times. the other thing that makes the job easier is that i think our president has, and our secretary of state, has taken this position very seriously at a very good in it. so when you become the assistant secretary, chances are pretty good that you got a pretty good predecessor there, and i have jim kelly who have done a lot of work to kind of set some things up. and to get to a very, very tough time. and the other thing is that, in the state department you're not

working alone. you're working with the national security council staff. so i had very talented people. mike green here in the audience worked with him until he was replaced by dennis wilde. so i must say, i felt that we're really discussed in a very good team but as for the challenges, i worked in the job for the second bush administration. and basically the challenge i think his oath the amount of bandwidth in washington. and if you take issues for being important and being urgent, it seems to be urgent always beats out the important. so maybe dating back a few years before when ambassador lord had the position, i think everyone understood east asia, definitely important, but i was getting constantly trump by the fact that we had double-header going in afghanistan and in iraq, and

quite understandably we have a president who had to be immersed in those issues. and often, and one of the challenges was that often when they look to another part of the world, like east asia, it was in terms of what those countries in east asia mean to the central challenge, which was waging the war on terrorism or dealing with these wars. and yet, if you go to a country like indonesia, this is a country that you put on a map, that goes from california to bermuda. it is huge. enormous population. and to introduce indonesia on as a bit player of the overall issue of the global war on terrorism, it didn't sit too well in indonesia. so i think part of the challenge was to work with these countries in and of themselves, and not just as instruments, but something that was going off in another part of the world. i came to the job via being

ambassador in korea, and i walked into a meeting that i felt was going to be with steve hadley, and connie rice joined the meeting. and both steve and connie said to me, our country has been going through two wars, and now we need some diplomats. and i think they made it very clear that we really need to start camping down some issues of the world. we just can't have everything blowing up in our faces. and one of the issues that i was very aware of coming from seoul was that if he did, our opinion surveys in the fall 2004, some 40% of south koreans were blaming the united states for the north korean nuclear crisis or if you can imagine that. so, a lot of what was really necessary in terms of the six-party talks, the process of

president bush had set up with the process of jim kelly and mike green got going. infected even elaborated some of the negotiating strategy. in that process was very important. not so much in terms of dealing with always lovable north koreans companies want to pick them up and hug them, you know? [laughter] but the process was important because with allies who are really doubting us. and so i think the thing we did in terms of working with the rok and closing that they like that had appeared between our two countries -- daylight come and we created a situation where we could work with the rok on a lot of things, i think was a very important aspect we did. then another thing, this goes back to something that dick solomon mentioned. we do best with china when we're doing real stuff with china.

and the real stuff we did with china on cambodia. we have trouble finding real stuff to do with china, especially in the wake of some of the issues that emerge with china. to be sure, we set up all these working groups. my goodness, i think we had 365 dialogues with china across every subject, but we weren't finding the things we can sit down and say okay, we will do this if you do that, and you kind of a real, address real problems. as i think the six parties were also important because of the patterns of cooperation, the pattern of interaction we established with the chinese. and you know, when i look at the sort of, i guess we'll get into this in further discussions. when i look at where are going to go in the future. we've got to figure out that relationship with china. and hence, it is somewhere

between g2 and china as the everlasting enemy with which we are bound to inflict this overreading of the worst but by the way, i'm from denver to nobody reads lascivious in denver but it only happens in think tanks in washington and a do not know why. i think we can put aside this notion that the whole conflict and rather replace it with a notion of that relationship is indeed going to fail and we need to figure things out. so when i think back, it was this issue of competing with the important competing with the urgent, of trying to open up some new areas. for example, i found out i was the first assistant secretary since winston lord. now kurt, i think you go every day. you go fishing there. you do everything with the new zealanders. well, that should have been

low-hanging fruit, yet i think you need an extension ladder to try to get going with new zealand. i'm proud we did because that's the country, you shouldn't take any country for granted, especially when you have all these problems and with all these crazy things with the solomon islands and crazy places like that. who is going to mind that? not at the solomon island but some of the solomon islands. so you need some countries you're going to work with. and we found we had some alister anywhere, thanks are putting this together. i really look forward to the session. >> that's great to all of you and your comments did mention china, so why to link directly to the question of china. so i guess, so when we teach, or when i teach international relations in georgetown, after we've read about the nation more -- peloponnesian war from one of things i tell my sense is the most important unanswered

question in international relations today is how the international can do with the rising should be able to the way we study, the next-generation but i guess the question to all of you would be how well do you think united states has dealt with the rice in china over the years, and what have you learned from each other from past experiences about even with china? kurt, why don't we start with you? >> a great question and a very hard question, and already our colleagues have touched on elements of it. i'll just give you my take. i mean, i believe that it will be the most consequential foreign policy challenge that we will ever faced. much more difficult than any relationship that we have had in the preceding years. largely because of its complexity, largely because it encompasses every element of statecraft, economic intercourse of people to people diplomacy

and, indeed, hard-core strategy. so it will be vexing and challenging. it does not do us a service, and i agree very much with chris in this respect, that much of our strategic parameters are dominated by 50 years of the cold war. and so some of those frameworks, like in a coat enemy, certain aspects of how we think about asia today, you hear constant refrains about whether the united states is trying to contain china, sort of a latter-day soviet union, without the recognition that the number one goal of every country in asia is to improve its relationship with china. and if you believe that, as i do, and i experience it on a daily basis, to think about constructing a strategy that did not reflect that fundamental truth, it seems nonsensical. so i think the challenge is just going to be enormous.

my one recommendation be that there are a lot of ways that people think about asia. there are some that say look at the core of our strategy, like a pinwheel. has to be china. and that you basically engage directly with beijing, and that things flow from that relationship. others would say look, the key to managing hard issues is maintaining a strong alliance and partnership tiki countries like japan, south korea and australia. and then there will be others that will say look, there are other ways to think about transnational challenges, unite all the countries in asia together as we do with things like climate change. my only recommendation, and actually my hope for whoever comes, who followed in our footsteps, is that there's a deep recognition that could china policy is best done when it is embedded in an asia

strategy. and it could china policy doesn't mean just going to beijing. it means working in the neighborhood, working to ensure that other countries are with you in dialogue and in discussions on issues of mutual concern. you have a much better shot at getting the kind of relationships and agreements. i very much agree with what chris said. it was a heyday in cooperation we had with china during the six-party talks. but part of that was them working within a context, the constellation of states. that's going to be central. but the truth is, it is sometimes the case that when does of our generation sit down and talk with those that were at the creation, the architects of the u.s.-china relationship, it is sometimes, at least my sense is there is a little bit of scolding about gosh, you know,

we did it this way 40 years ago, and you guys have sort of lost the hang of it. i would simply say the strategies that you adopt when you're trying to do were a xenophobic, generally inward looking, underdeveloped nation out into the world, are incredibly difficult, different from the strategies that you apply when you're dealing with the country that is rising faster than any country in history. with a very strong sense of itself, strong sense of nationalism, and how you engage and shape their global choices. and so, i think it will be the dominant feature of american foreign policy going forward. i belief we will have a welcoming asia that wants a stronger engaged america. that's the biggest difference from my tenure to the tenure of these gentlemen. in the past there was often ambivalence about the united

states. no longer. everyone in asia once more of the united states. and our job will be to see if we have the wisdom to sustain a very high level operating engagement that involves not just china, which will be at the center of much of what we do, but also the other nations of asia, japan, south korea, all of aussie on. that's a critical part of our engagement strategy. australia, new zealand as chris indicated, and a rising india. >> can i jump in your? mention the architects for years ago. scolding them. don't include me in that group. because i agree with exactly with the approach you just outlined. is typical rebalancing to in asia that this administration has done i think they successfully, there are three myths that relate to what you were just talking. one myth is that started in 2011.

another myth, it's essentially military, and spreading to all essentially against china. all three of those things are wrong. house nine it was because asia is important generally not just in china, korea, southeast asia and what if you want to talk about and the economy. and it is designed to welcome china into pacific not to contain china but they are difficult to deal with. let's places relationship -- we've got for five decades since the first secret trip. we have essentially a consensual relationship with china. we didn't have diplomatic relations. no real concrete exchanges and most of the it was mostly balancing the soviet union during the cold war and talking in strategic terms about global affairs. in the '80s would begin to

pick up some concrete exchanges, and i was fortunate to be in china in the late '80s when we begin to increase trade. selling arms to china, cooperate in afghanistan and along the soviet border. but then along came tiananmen square. so in the '90s, a relationship had to adjust to new dramatic elements. the glue that held us together in the '70s and '80s of balancing the soviet union was now gone because the berlin wall fell. the cold war was over. so in a healthy way we had to greatly expand our relationship with china. but at the same time because of tiananmen square, the human rights issue got much more prominent and it was much more difficult to deal with china in terms of domestic politics. so the '90s was a matter, china struggled to how we can get this relationship on a broader basis and increase the exchanges. at the time you got to 2000s, and, of course, china is

becoming a major power in the world and our interactions, and chrysostom in your term, much were extensive, much were healthy in some respects but many more reasons of friction and other specs but i won't get into specifics policy. i agree talking we all agree it's going to be a mixed relationship. excuse the adjective, it will be sweet and sour. it will be a mix of cooperation, competition and contention. and i think it's important to keep in mind it's a floor and ceiling, so we don't succumb to euphoria when we think things have gone well, complacency, or gloom and we think things are getting really tense. the floor is that we don't have territorial disputes, unless you count the taiwan issue. which we aren't not claiming. so, and china is not an imperial power like soviet union, japan

and germany, which had external -- time is consumed with its own domestic scene although it can be aggressive and we've seen that in recent years. we have many problems we want to work on together and can work on together. we have extensive economic interaction. so also it would be dangerous to get an outright conflict and a waste of resources. so the relationship is not going to become, as for as i can see, one of our great hostilities. on the other hand, there's a ceiling. above all, our different value systems are different political systems, and conflicting interests and the tensions of a rising and an established power. to keep my it's going to have its next. you've got to build areas of cooperation. that's why there's strategic dialogue at all the committees set up at various levels. very important because you can talk to each other and the chinese can tell us they want us to stay in the pacific, they're not driving as a.

we can tell them we are not contained in them, but we're not going to get trust with reputable have to be as you say chris, working on a stump in concrete areas where you on issues, both regional and bilateral, which build our constituencies in both crashes for the relationship, which help to solve some of those problems. and which puts in context for our publics, respective publics, the fact that yes, we have human rights, trade friction. we are these other cooperations, so keep this relationship on a steady cubic let me just finish by saying we should not be overly optimistic or pessimistic, and they go back to the expert, mark twain. he said about music, and i would say about the u.s.-china relationship, on the one hand, he said, about richard walker's music, that is not as bad as it

sounds. so keep that in mind when things are not going well with china. but he also said, he was a great music critic. he discussed britney spears music, and he said it's not as good as it looks lik. [laughter] so if you keep a steady home, i think we can succeed with this complex relationship. >> thank you. >> let me pick up on secretary campbell's point about the china today, is just a much more complex entity to deal with. and the great challenge that we face, and they face them is managing this relationship. and in this context, i want to stress what i see is two of the major areas of challenge. first is the internal challenge. we tend to assume that gee,

china was growing at 10% a year for three decades, it slowed down a little bit but it's going to keep growing. i think that's wrong. i think we're going to see a situation where, for a combination of economic and internal political reasons, china is now entering, my guess is, a very difficult period a one way to put it is the society has outgrown the political system that brought the revolution, and see this as i go in the it has, no substantial measure because of its economic growth. i like to do this when i give talks about china. this is one of the most revolutionary technologies of any kind, cell phone. why is it relevant? there are supposedly 400 million cell phones in china. we are dealing with a mobilized population. they know what's going on. they know what is happening in their society.

and the world. and for my discussions with senior cadre officials in the country, they're feeling a norms public pressure. thing of the impact on politics of the scandal, of seeing the sun out cavorting with berries party girls. there's been several other very high level scandals in the leadership that have reinforced what i believe is a growing alienation of the society from the party leadership. at as the country interest its fifth generation leadership, which is about to proceed in a formal way, shortly after our election and play out early next year, this leadership really does face some very fundamental issues about, can they open up the political process in dealing with the very substantial

measure of distrust in the populations. so that situation will be exasperated if economic growth slows. people will be put out of work, or peasants coming into the eastern provinces looking for higher incomes will be disappointed. so i think the prospects of some significant instability are going to be part of the game. now, what about external relations? the effort to create a greater, which we say strategic equilibrium in east asia through the rebalancing process, is a risky one. it's risky because the chinese are viewing what we're up to not as an effort to maintain stability in the region, to maintain the kind of working relations that have prevented

all of the historical animosities that recently have surfaced with japan and with other countries, to keep them under control. as we know from very interesting study that kenneth lieberthal and others put out, high level of distrust on both sides. .. >> from these very heavy military engagements in iraq, afghanistan, that part of the world. think about a situation where

the balloon goes up with iran and where we're in a fight over the nuclear proliferation problem there. think about a situation where afghanistan really goes sour or iraq does not go in the direction we're hoping for. we may find it much more difficult to disengage from middle east, south asia, those kinds of issues that we're trying to unburden ourselves to be able to put more emphasis on this important east asian relationship. but i'm not sure it's going to play out that way. so mr. negative here, i think we have to look realistically at some of the costs both in terms of possible developments in china and in international affairs. >> thanks. chris? >> i agree with a lot of what assistant secretary solomon has just said. first of all, i think the issues in china are driven by domestic

issues in china, and i think we need to be a little careful about this sort of opinion of ours that it's all about us. it's not all about us. there are things going on in china that have absolutely nothing to do with us. i think where it does become something to do with us is how do we treat china through these issues, how do we manage the relationships when they are clearly having these convulsions internally. i mean, the issue -- this is about a corrupt party official the way moby dick is the story about a whale. i mean, a little more going on there. [laughter] i think we need to, we need to try to understand it a lot better than we do, and certainly a lot better than some of our media tries. so i think where it is getting very dicey, though, is in as dick solomon suggests the sort

of social compact is beginning to fall apart there where growth is not going to be present in china, and what is this doing to the aspirations of the society that has clearly, clearly outgrown the economic process, especially when the economic process isn't doing what it was supposed to or clearly out -- i'm sorry, clearly outgrown the political sort of security state that manages all this. and when the political security state doesn't manage the economy, i think that is creating enormous social tensions. not every one of those social tensions, however, has to do with chinese demanding more human rights. of course, that is going on. but what is also going on in a very ominous way is a public that is becoming increasingly nationalistic where they look to the government and says why haven't you secured the raw

materials that you say you're securing. and i think some of the recent belligerence -- which is perhaps too strong a word -- but some of this toward china's neighbors is a result of this internal churn that is going on in china, and we need to watch that very carefully. it is not in our interest to make countries that have benefited tremendously from china's growth, i mean, if you look at growth rates throughout southeast asia, they're very much tied to the growth rates of china. so it is not in our interests to make these countries choose between us and china. it is in our interest to be very much present. and so, um, i guess when we switch from the word pivot to rebalance or, kurt, what is it now? >> pirouette. >> okay, good. [laughter] it's a good thing because we need to be, we need to be there, and we need to be supportive.

but we need to be very careful not to be seen as somehow egging this situation on, that somehow sharpening the choices for these countries or somehow becoming an element in the debate within, within china. finally, i'd like to say as someone who's spent a little time in some of these other places in the world, richard, you're quite right. we're not going to be disengaged from the middle east or south asia. far from it, we're going to be very engaged. but i hope it will be an engagement of a diplomatic kind and that we won't have a trillion dollars going into iraq again. because if that's what we're looking at, we cannot manage all of these issue, simultaneously. so i think we can be engaged in these other countries and still keep in mind the fact that china's, china and the rest of the east asia is really, is really quite essential to our

interests. so i think certainly our country has its work cut out for it, but, you know, for those people who think that somehow the u.s. is in decline and china's in the rise or india or something, you know, have a look at what those countries like china, what the problems they have, they have every day and ask yourself whether you'd like to exchange inboxes. i doubt it very much. and finally, and i -- this is a sort of unsight i gained from living in the wen part of -- western part of the united states, our country is going to become energy self-sufficient at some point. i mean, i'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow. but that is going to be a huge game changer. so even on what has been described as our achilles heel for years and years, this notion of this perennially and declining weak u.s. economy, even that's going to be changing. and when you're a country like japan, for example, looking at,

you know, off-the-table type demographics where japan which has now gone from 128 million people at its peak now down to -- in our children's lifetime, we're looking at 70 million people, manager like that. when you look at japan that is fore swearing nuclear energy because of last year's catastrophe and looking at these huge increases in lng and things like that, and then you look at the united states, you know, we are going to be a very, very big, big player for years to come for a lot of reasons including and especially our economy. so i think it is really a good time to look at this, because we are not in any kind of declining mode. we're going to be even more important in the coming four years. >> can i just respond to just one thing? i was just thinking a little bit about what both our last two talked about, about, you know, whether we should be optimistic

about whether this can be sustained. and i actually think the challenges are even greater than richard laid out, but i'm actually optimistic that we'll be able to deal with it. i think in terms of commitments, we're going to have a double pull. the one pull is going to be the continued need to be engaged in the middle east and south asia, and i agree with that. but if you look at the history of modern military american engagements, what we have generally done after periods of intense martial engagement is actually come home. right after the korean war, vietnam, second world war, first world war. and so we have two things that we have to resist against. one is the temptation to be drawn back in, and the other is to resist a desire to focus more on domestic affairs. there is also enormous challenges on the personnel front. one of the things that i am struck by is that 15 years of war and a focus on the middle east will lead your diplomatic

corps, your intelligence career specialists, your military to focus a lot on those areas. and so our government, our real sort of not just the political appointees, but are heavily skewed now towards those challenges, and we're going to have to create a whole new generation of people like we did in the 1950s and '60s that have a much deeper knowledge of asia as a whole. i believe we will be able to do it, but it will be an enormous challenge, and it will take a period of time. and that will be across every key institution. >> present company excluded. >> yeah. and that's one of the reasons why the georgetown school and others are so important. this is where the future generations not just in the united states, but in asia reside. it is also the case that if you look at american economic performance, we've done an incredible job at absorbing asian goods. but if you look at the

penetration of american goods and services into asia over the course of the last 20 years, it's not particularly impressive. and we're going to have to do a lot more to rebalance that economic relationship so we save more and sell more to asia to create a more sustained engagement. but ultimately, i believe what will spur us on is exactly the thing that chris just mentioned, which is that we respond to a challenge. and that challenge is going to come from asia. there have been many times in the course of the last 30 years where sort of rumors of american demise and decline have animated the strategic thinking of asia. each time countries have bet on that they have bet wrong, and they've lost a lot of money. and that's going to happen again because the fundamentals of american economic performance are there.

i believe personally there is this bipartisan commitment, and i see very clearly, for instance, in the institutions that will drive the asian pacific century, our diplomatic corps, our business community, our navy and our air force a recognition that this is where the challenges are. and there is a really exciting, fervent of ideas and bubbling up of initiatives, people to people, you name it, that are taking place across the realm. and there's nothing like success to make people want to remain engaged. we have spent a lot, and we have, um, lost a lot in some of these other places. our investmentsing in asia -- investments in asia generally have paid off remarkably even when we have not been fundamentally successful in the early sort of evaluation stage. and i think that is likely to continue into the future.

>> quick comment on this theme of our domestic challenges, because i agree with what chris said 100% about our competitiveness versus the entire world. i would amend your statement, but i think our challenge is not so much -- [inaudible] it's a challenge from within our own society. and if we get our act together, and that's a big if, the polarization, the toxic nature of our public discourse, the lack of bipartisanship now, politically and economically that is the single best thing we can do for our china policy and what we can do for our foreign policy in general. it'll validate our system, it'll give us credibility around the world, it'll produce the resources we need. and if we do that not only the energy, but we're way ahead of everyone including militarily and technology. the demographics favor us, as you say. we have the best universities, we have the best r&d, weapon a

entrepreneurial spirit and a political system. so i'll take where we're sitting anytime over china, but we've got to get through this immediate polarization. that's what we're all going to be thinking about next tuesday, and we've got the immediate not only fiscal cliff, but the trifecta of getting on top of our debt problem and investing in our future all at the same time. i think we can do it. and if we can, there's no reason to talk about american decline. >> right. um, i want students, friends, faculty, we are going to put a mic down here in the center aisle, so if you can start thinking of questions, just line up at the mic. i don't know how many we'll take in the time constraints, but as you're thinking, i wanted to ask our guests one other question about the future which is, you know, that in many ways every administration is tested not by the things that they plan to do, but the things that happen that

they didn't expect, the surprises. and i guess the question for all of you looking to the future, i don't know if you can do this as a sitting government official, but what do you think will be the surprise for the next administration in asia? maybe we'll start with chris and work our way back. >> i mean, the quick answer is i don't know what the surprise is, what with there being a surprise and all. [laughter] i believe that what is going on in china, i mean, nest -- domestically i don't think we really understand it, and i think some real surprises could come out of that process. i'm not of the view that somehow china will break apart or something like that, but i just don't feel that china will sort of continue to sort of bubble along the way it has. i think there's, there are

really some deep currents there that are running. the other thing -- four years, you're saying? i wouldn't be surprised if some big issue comes up in north korea, and i relate that to china in the sense that i think the quality of our dialoguing with the chinese really needs to be stepped up on that issue. for example, we've had a concept of operation called 50-29. i would really, you know, whether it needs to be redacted or something in some areas, i'd like to sit down with the chinese and make it abundantly clear to them what we would do and what we would not do in the event that north korea somehow has a convulse. con vumtion. i mean, i don't think we have any interest in stationing troops north of the 3th parallel, i don't think we have any interest in putting listening posts on the yalo river.

i don't think we have interests in hurting china's strategic profile. and so i know we've, i'm sure kurt's had these conversations, i've had some of these conversations, i think it needs to be much more systematic to the point where the chinese actually start responding and we have a real conversation about it. one of the things that bothers me most about the sultry conversation about china and the united states you hear these terms that china now believes x. well, you know, there are 1.3 million people, there are a lot of different opinions there, and i don't think we can assume we know where china is. and i think with respect to north korea, china's all over the map. >> i want to reenforce chris', the instinct that he has. i believe there's some good chance that north korea's going to pull a burma. i've never met the many folks

really from south korea i've worked with who want to see their country dependent on china. and the north korean leadership, leaderships since the time of kim ill song, kim jung-il, they have all tried to maintain a measure of flexibility by having two major powers that they could play one against another. so one possibility is that we will be approached by the kim young unleadership saying they want to improve relations because they don't want to be totally dependent on china. now, i would not expect their approach would say we're ready to give up our nuclear program, but we may be in a position where our government is going to have some interesting possibilities that may well run against all the political pushback that you could imagine from congress and the media about how could we start a dialogue and be more flexible with this beknighted, this

huggable regime up in north korea. but there is another possibility, and there are already some signs that kim young un's effort to to -- remember him appearing with his wife at some kind of cultural event, and they had figures that sort of looked like mickey and minnie mouse. and when i saw that i said, hey, that's ping-pong diplomacy in a new guise. i think an equally likely outcome maybe in the short run is that kim jong un's effort to really bring about change is going to run into tremendous pushback from elements of the military who are not prepared to live with the consequences of that change. is and you could see an internal implosion. so i agree with chris hill that watch north korea. >> yes, okay.

>> when you come last, there's not many surprises left. [laughter] i agree by definition, t hard to define it. first, we've got to have some sort of disagreement, so i will be surprised if we have a burma in north korea. i won't get into detail, we want to get to your questions. the trouble with talking to the chinese, they won't talk to us. and as kurt knows, it's too sensitive to talk about contingents in north korea. but i think you're suggesting some unilateral exposition -- >> yeah. >> because this is a possible danger. if there's a collapse in north korea, the danger of the chinese going in, we're going in, loose nuclear weapons, refugees, it's a very serious situation. we've been try, i'm sure, to get to talk to the chinese about this. i hope you're having some success, but they're very sensitive. again, it's not really a surprise if you're sort of half

predicting it, but i think china's in even more trouble than chris is mentioning. i think this next group of leaders -- by the way, don't start predicting we're going to get thomas jefferson. [laughter] i'll give you an anecdote. last year vice president biden went and spent a week with the next leader of china, mr. chi. i was down in washington right after this trip. this is an absolutely true story. i went to one high-ranking official and said what's chi like? this guy said, this is someone we can deal with. he's pragmatic, he's much looser than the current regime, we can do business, this is good news for u.s./china relations. two hours later i spoke to another person in the administration equally high level who had also been on the trip, said what do you think of mr. chi? this guy's really dangerous. [laughter] this guy's a nationalist, and we're in deep trouble in our relationship. i swear to god, that's what i heard within two hours.

so we haven't -- [laughter] dungdeng xiaoping we didn't know there were going to be the reforms, with hu jintao we sort of thought they'd be going forwards, they're going backwards. it's more repressive in certain areas now than it was in the late '80s. if they don't make changes in their economic and political system in the next decade, i think we can see real instability which could in turn mean nationalistic, aggressive foreign policy to rally the citizens against the foreign devils. so that to me, i don't know it's a surprise, but i think maybe it is if there are many tiananmen squares. >> if i could just add one point that we haven't really mentioned is one of the surprises that happened in the last four years, and there was some strategic warning of it, but it happened which was what happened in burma. and i think, you know, the

administration, first of all, we're involved with that early on. i mean, kurt, you were going there, other people were going there. so it wasn't like we were just sitting around and suddenly this happened. but i think what was significant about the obama administration was once it happened, they didn't sort of look around and say, you know, what should we do, they didn't kind of hold back, they kind of pounced on it. and i think that is one thing our administration -- whoever, you know, is running foreign policy in a month or two months' time, when something good or bad happens, get moving on it. and i think the obama administration and kurt personally really moved on this issue in burma, and i think has helped the process go forward. so it's not just surprises, it's how you react to them. and i think the obama administration did great job on burma. >> very good point. to this question?

>> yeah. i think for the first time in my life i'll probably just listen and observe about those are good comments. >> [inaudible] >> my staff is going, like, i can't believe it. [laughter] chris is right, these are good people, and you hate to to put m through having to work for people like us. i will say this, you're talking about strategic surprises, this is a tactical surprise. i never in a million years thought that i would come home to my daughters all doing this cowboy south korean trot. [laughter] around my living room singing a korean song called gangnam style. i didn't think that would happen. [laughter] >> so we're going to go to the next part of the program in which are questions. i don't know if we're going to be able to take all of you given the time constraints, i can't see how far the line goes back. four. so that's good. if you can state who you are and then, if possible, address your

question to one of our participants. others may chime in, but address it to one of our participants and, please, make your question concise. >> hello, deputy director of nuclear arms proliferation, thank you for all of your expert insights on this excellent program. i must add that as an msfs alum, it's great to be back in gaston hall. in the beginning of your opening remarks, all four of you, the common theme was the challenge of shining attention on an important region, in other words, presidential attention and white house attention. and i'm really glad, ambassador hill and ambassador solomon, you brought up north korea. if it's hard to bring attention to a region, it's even harder to shed light or anticipation on a small country which is part of that region, which is north korea. as we know, north korea has essentially changed the game with its nuclear program, and as

we know it's virtually impossible to verify stockpiles and, ambassador hill, you've experienced difficulties. going forward and, also, highly unlikely to change nuclear policy, so going forward is there an inkling of hope in this gloomy picture going forward, and if so, where do we start, especially on the nuclear front? do we start back in 2008 when it broke down, or do we start from the leap day deal that also broke down, and this question is, i'm sorry, i'm going to direct it to two gentlemen, ambassador hill and assistant secretary campbell. thank you. >> i would say the first thing is to make a fundamental decision that we're not going to walk away from this or say it's not so important or, you know, argue this isn't a reason to do other things rather than address it because i think ironically, people who often say, you know,

you can't negotiate this are kind of the tough-minded people, you know, therefore, we need a naval blockade or something. but the people who say you can't negotiate this, that's kind of letting the north koreans off the hook. and it's basically creating the predicate for, you know, the idea that eventually, you know, we're going to live with a north korean bomb. i don't think we should go there. i think it's extremely dangerous. i think it's dangerous for the region, i mean, it just shreds the whole npt. so i think we've got to stay engaged on it. secondly, people who can't really answer the question how are we going to get it done start getting into the format. do we want four-power talks? how about two, how about six, maybe keeping six, how about eight, how about nine, you know? i don't think this has anything to do with anything. i think we ought to just leave it at six. if someone wants to come in or

someone wants to drop out, fine. but i think what is very important is that we ought to try the to work this on a step-by-step basis and try to get people on the ground. the reason it all broke up back in '08, i mean, it wasn't just, you know, kim jung-il becoming kim jung very ill and that whole issue -- [laughter] also it had to do, the north koreans gave us an incomplete, an incorrect declaration. we were prepared to live with that because we didn't really, you know, we knew that their declaration, you know, we wouldn't have believeed it even if it were correct. what we needed out of that was a verification regime that we could get on the ground and look at undeclared sites. obviously, if you can't look at undeclared sites, you don't have a verification rejeej, and ultimately we weren't able to

get there, and we had to end the negotiations. so i would suggest we just kind of hammer away, especially with the chinese, on getting some kind of verification regime to verify and to explore what is really going on there. i agree with you that the uranium enrichment is very difficult and, frankly, we still don't know what it is although clearly it's, you know, they've done a lot of investment in it. but my main point about north korea is we should be doing all of the above. you know, when i was engaged in these negotiates, i'd have people say to me in these interagency meetings, gee, we want aboard this north korean ship, but we wouldn't want to interfere with chris' negotiation. and my reaction was, look, i don't care if you sink the thing, you know, i have no problem being tough as nails on these interdiction strategies. the problem we had with the famous banco delta asia thing

not that we did banco delta asia, that was not the problem. it was a lever when once used you couldn't control. and that's where, you know, you really have to look a little carefully at what you're doing. if you can't undo it, if you can no longer use it as a means to affect policy, you better be careful about using it in the first place. so my view is all of the above. we should be using sanctions, we should be talking to the chinese like crazy, we should be doing maybe each some things that i suspect if you believe david sanger were doing some things in iran. i don't know. but i think we need to be active across the board in a sort of all-of-the-above format, and i think diplomatic negotiation is definitely a part of that. >> i would just add one point, a very good question. i had a chance, i just got back from korea and had a chance to talk with most of the advisers

of the political candidates. they're all different. i would say each campaign very determined to maintain a strong relationship with the united states. i think that's quite reassuring, and that is our hope and expectation going forward. but i think it is also clear that there is, um, victor may have something to say about this. i think a strong desire among the key advisers to all the candidates to have another go at diplomacy. and so i think one of the most important features of recent diplomacy with north korea has been that the united states has worked very closely with south korea and where we can with china and, obviously, closely with japan. and we are very much engaged in jointly working together at our best approaches towards pyongyang. it's not just the united states

leading and others following. and i think one of the things that we're going to have to listen to very carefully when the new government comes to power after the election, one of the things that we've not talked about, this unprecedented period of leadership change in china, elections in south korea, elections in the united states and probably change in government in japan, it leads to very, exciting and challenging period. we're going to have to be prepared to both consult quickly and listen to south korean friends on the way forward. >> thanks. go ahead. >> richard, go ahead. >> just a brief perspective on this very interesting issue. if there's going to be a game changer in our dealings with the north korean situation that'll break us out of this stalemate, it's going to require manager -- something that is probably politically impossible for us to swallow, and that is starting from the premise that we are

prepared to recognize the security of the north korean regime. i mean, that's at the core of their desire for -- [inaudible] politically, you can imagine the uproar of a negotiation where we have built in to some deal guarantees may be the wrong word, but some recognition that north korea, this beknighted state, has a right to survive and work out its own problems which are very substantial. if that's the change in premise, then the way you would get a deal is with china and south korea, the united states in effect in some operational way recognizing that north korea is there, and it's going to have to work out its own problems. for the north koreans, that context would require them seeing that their security really is not based on having atomic weapons, it's based on

having a viable economy. now, could there be a game change that would lead to fundamental changes on both sides in those premises? that's the opportunity, the challenge and what makes it so hard to see real progress. >> by the way, in the september '05 statement we expressed a willingness to, in effect, give them negative security guarantees and to have cross-recognition of states. we put everything, everything on the table. what we did not and will not put on the table is the idea that we should do all those things with a nuclear north korea. now again, we're prepared to, we were prepared to look at sequencing, but we're not prepared to say north korea can be a nuclear country, and then we'll recognize it, and once they feel better about themselves maybe someday in the distant future they'll disarm. but, i mean, the disarmament

piece has to be up there on the table as well. so -- >> i'm going to ask, are there -- so there are two people? two. could you ask your questions together? i mean, not together together -- [laughter] i mean, we'll ask the panel to wait to hear both questions and then ask them to respond because we still have another piece of this program we need to complete, and we're way over time. so, please, go ahead. >> my name is chris goodrich, i'm a master's candidate. secretary clinton has implemented the quadrennial review of diplomacy and development. i was wondering how you assess that impact has been on the way the u.s. develops policy for asia and if there are any other procedural or structural reforms to our foreign policy apparatus that you feel would enhance our ability to deal with these challenges. >> okay. >> my name is major john gregory, u.s. army, and i'm a doctorate student in chinese history here at georgetown, and my question has to do with military-to-military relations.

in particular, undersecretary carp bell, you mentioned the air force and the navy, but my question has to do in particular if you view that the military-to-military relations are less than robust vis-a-vis u.s. and china. and so in one areas do you see mil-to-mil relations on important, and in what places -- >> and i think we'll use both of these as an opportunity for all of our guests to make their final comments. so on state's quadrennial review and mi l/mil. >> thank you. i think the quadrennial review is helpful in terms of how to recognize some of the challenges that we face not just in asia, but globally. i think it was a good review. the key to the state d., unfortunately, is going to be resources going forward. secretary clinton's been an absolute heavyweight, but even in that environment it's opinion

hard to convince others of the need to sustain necessary levels of funding fur diplomacy -- for diplomacy. what we really have is a government with one institution or a collection of institutions that are basically on steroids, our military and national security, and the rest of our government which is, essentially, on life support. and that's a very hard thing to sustain. and so one of the things i like about the state department but one of the things that's a challenge is that you've got to get by on cunning and gilens and strategy. because you don't have the programs, you don't have the resources that the other branches of the government has. so the hope is there's going to be more balance in the period ahead. the new budgeting apparatus includes the state department as part of the national security budget as a whole with. but i wouldn't hold my breath. i think making the case for robust diplomacy, my hope will

be a bipartisan effort, but it's going to be a challenge no matter what. secondly, on mil-to-mil, my primary interest between the united states and china is to focus on creating the institutions and the capability that will allow our forces and our commanders to do several things. first of all, we need a much more robust with exchange of views on our strategy and our overall approaches. i think the kind of thing that chris laid out talking about certainly scenarios entirely appropriate, and maybe some of that effort is, are things that people have thought about. it is also the case that we have to be as u.s. forces and chinese forces operate in proximity much more regularly than they have in the past, we have to have things in place that prevent unnecessary escalations or accidents. so negotiating the kinds of frameworks that allow for urgent communication, for operational, practical solutions and

approaches, i think, is going to be essential going forward. we on our part need to train, i'm glad to see you here, a whole new generation of officers. we really don't have much of a fail program any longer, but we need to train that next generation of military officer with deep knowledge of asia language, experience to better enable them to do their job, to understand sort of the strategic atmosphere in which they operate a as a whole. i think we have to be cognizant of, you know, just as wynn laid out effectively the stages of our diplomacy, not going to be like it was in the past. i worked during a period in which there was enormous enthusiasm on the mil-to-mil side. there's more wariness now, and that's probably to be expected, but having practical areas where we work together along the lines that richard and chris laid out

is the secret to a more effective mil-to-mil relationship between our two sides, which is an essential feature of a healthy, productive relationship between the united states and china. >> many a couple of final thoughts. first on the military issue, i commend the administration for having a strategic dialogue on military affairs with both civilian and military leaders there to go along with the political and economic dialogues. it's the most difficult, it's the most fragile. i said earlier there's a floor and a ceiling in our relationship, but there are some real dangers. we could stumble into conflict. one we've touched on, the contingencies in korea. two others, maritime issues or even ire surveil -- air surveillance, but we're close to chinese borders, and also we have different views of what you can do in economic zones. the south south china sea and et asia sea drawing us into conflict with china via our

treaty allies like philippines and japan or just surveillance collisions with the chinese, that's one dangerous area. the other is we haven't talked about, we don't have time, saga warfare. that's an incredibly different issue. of course, economic and stealing our economic secrets. a final thought is whatever we want to do with asia as a whole, including china -- and i want to stress what campbell stressed, we're talking about asia, we're not just talking about china. it's a huge reason, that was the impetus for the pivot. it started in 2009, and it goes well beyond china, and it's the way to deal with china contra to any criticisms you're getting from architects, i couldn't agree more with your approach. but all of this is irrelevant if we don't get our act together here at home. if we don't solve our economic problems, and we've all said it,

particularly chris, how promising it is if we can get through this, everything else we do in foreign policy is irrelevant. we've got to do that for credibility as a world leader, credibility to our allies, credibility against our possible adversaries, getting the resources we need and giving the american people who have been through tough times, therefore, will be tempted to withdraw from the world. if there aren't economic prospects and the political atmosphere in washington is healthier, they will be more sanguine about their own destinies and, therefore, they'll be willing to support america's leadership in the world. >> i think just to turn the mil-to-mil issue around, i want to see what comes out of this leadership transition. i believe the pla, the chinese military's been somewhat out of control. there are a whole series of incidents going back to the ep3 thing in 2001 where at least at a tactical level the military

was taking some provocative actions that embarrassed the political leadership. and the military is not well represented at the very top levels of the chinese political system. i want to see what comes out of this transition. we've urged the chinese to establish a national security council kind of mechanism to better coordinate military and civilian activities, and can they've had troubles getting a bureaucratic handle on the pla. so i think the future of mil-to-mil and our ability to work in terms of relationships with our own military are going to be affected in a fundamental way by what comes out of this transition. in china. >> and i guess i'm standing between them and their din canner or something -- dinner or

something? >> well, no, we still have another piece of it. [laughter] >> oh, okay. first of all, i think one of the things the administration has done very well at is to improve the civil/military relationship within this country, and it has not been easy especially coming out of a global war on terror, a war in iraq, a war in afghanistan all of which had our military in the lead. and so i think it's been very important that we restore this balance that i think has been done very effectively to the extent the quadrennial review and other such planning documents of that kind have played a role in this, i'm all in favor of them. but i would like to just second ambassador lord's comments on the fact that we've got to get our act together in term of our domestic politics. you know, i worry sometimes that the fact that sort of there are no limits to what is said or no

limits to, you know, where the game should be played is resulting, is really harming our foreign policy. there used to be a very quaint notion that our politics stopped at the water's edge. well, that seems like a distant memory today. our foreign policy is really opened up to all kinds of brutal political infighting. partly -- it's caused by a lot of things whether it's, you know, the fact that the internet gives, you know, everyone a platform to have an opinion, that's terrific. it gets very nasty and very personal, and i think it's going to ultimately erode the willingness of people to take these crazy jobs that kurt has so well described in dealing

with your kids. i'll never forget my 11-year-old daughter when i called home and said it's daddy, and she said daddy who? [laughter] star chasm at the -- star chasm at the age of 11 is not a good thing. [laughter] and i really think we need to rebuild some kind of bipartisanship, and what a good place to start in asia where i think there is a real sense this is where our country's future is. and, you know, i think all of us who have worked for various administrations, republican and democrat, i think we're -- this is a kind of good place to start because -- and i don't want to, again, fixate on china, but that is a major challenge to us as we go forward. and if we can't kind of develop or continue, i would say, to have this kind of consensus on the need for engagement, the

need for building relationships and not just transactions there, but the need for a very broad and deep relationship, i think we'll have trouble. .. >> to my knowledge, no one has assembled this degree of expertise on a subject he and memory. we have had a conversation here that is both, it seems to me, bipartisan but with differences

of opinions. but the tenor has been bipartisan, and i think that may reflect at some level a continuing tendency for some of our political discourse to end at the edge of the country. i think this has been a very hopeful exchange with lots of interesting views, and so we've talked about bipartisan and polarization. i think we have reason to be optimistic on the basis of this conversation that there is a lot of basic agreement with some interesting disagreements and a tenor of respect and bipartisan is an. i want to thank both the president's office and the korea economic institute, who cosponsored this event, along with myself from the school of foreign service. kurt, in good asian tradition, we can't let you leave without

giving you a gift. so let me invite you to the podium. i hope this is not a terrible surprise. one of the most significant foreign policy initiatives of president -- [laughter] >> sorry. >> i notice he had boots on. i thought that was interesting. one of the most important initiatives of president obama's administered has been the so called pivot rebalancing in asia, in which america has prioritized the asia-pacific region, as a key american strategy for the foreseeable future. over the past four years we've seen to united states for the consolidate our strong alliance institutions in east asia, build forward-looking partnerships in southeast asia, and in south asia. and contribute to an open and prosperous economic trading order throughout the region. while many have contributed to

these policies, it's fair to set much of this could not a been accomplished without the work of you, kurt, assistant secretary camel has invested many hours on airplanes and foreign ministries and interagency conference rooms and on the telephone at home. in support of the u.s. interest in asia. your tireless efforts, your deep commitment, good humor are well known throughout asia. and we here at georgetown want to recognize your work with the georgetown asia award. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. >> this is a commemorative awa award, inscribed with kirchner. it says the georgia asia award presented to the honorable kurt campbell for his service to u.s.-asia relations, november 1,

2012, washington, d.c. so thank you. i'm told by my notes here there's a photo op. is there a photo person here? a photographer? did you, did you want to do a photo op? you've got to go, sorry. we're so efficient. >> i was leaning over to -- [laughter] >> we're going to put that on the website, kurt. well, this is an excellent discussion but i hope you all enjoyed it. we at georgetown are really honored to have hosted this event, along with our friends from the korean institute. thank you to our guests, and to all of our attendees for being here. now, that concludes this event, and we wish you a good evening. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] why would be assassin john wilkes booth want to assassinate him stick some scholars think that booth realized that an event of the death of both the president and the vice president, secretary of state was tasked with organizing an election. i don't think so. booth wasn't alone. he was an actor. and a shakespearean actor who knew the play caesars backward and forward. and he viewed, he viewed himself as brutus, doing the right thing or wrong, and he viewed lincoln as caesar, the tyrant, and viewed stewart as perhaps a like marc anthony, the co-tyrant.

he wanted to be sure that the co-tyrant was a limited as well as the tyrant. spend more about the leader of abraham lincoln drive, with walter start sunday night at eight on c-span's q&a. >> maple syrup names everything to the people of vermont. you know, we don't have a notion. we don't have the highest mountains. we don't have it is the world. what we have is the maple image. this is a sugar maple or hard rock maple, and it's a tree we use for shogren because it's the sweetest maple trees. it averages 2% sugar content in its sap. and what we do to start the season is drill a hole, to wound the tree about an inch deep.

and we need to drill a new hole in a different place every year. so, this tree here was tapped last spring in 2012 right here. and you see it healed right. that's good. that means that tree is healthy and healing. but there is scar tissue below and above so it won't run its sap at that point. so next year we will go right to the outside of the tree and drill a hole. you can see 2011 and 2010. and you might think that we are hurting the trees, but i can say i'm sure this tree is right on. it's been tapped 100 years in a row. so we don't really hurt those trees. >> more from vermont this weekend as booktv, eric in history tv, and c-span's local content vehicles look behind the scenes at the history and literary life of vermont state

capitol, montpelier, saturday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2, and sunday at 5 p.m. on american history tv, on c-span3. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays feature live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events. and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and their schedules at our website. and you can join in on the conversation on social media sites. >> army chief of staff general ray odierno yesterday talked about how the military is preparing for the future. he discussed the challenge of maintaining the armies readiness with smaller troop levels and the shift out of iraq and afghanistan. center for strategic and international studies posted this hour-long event.

>> ladies and gentlemen, -- years ago -- [inaudible] the auditorium had a podium -- >> microphone. [laughter] >> it's the year to command equipment is really difficult. welcome to the center for strategic and international studies. that sounds real, all right. good morning and welcome to everyone in the room. welcome to our viewers on the web this one. i'm david berteau, the director of the international safety program here and the host for the forum. we been doing these for about a

dozen years now almost, and it is due in great part to the generous support of -- without which we couldn't do this program. it's a pleasure for us to have with us this morning chief of staff of the united states army, general ray odierno. general odierno is from new jersey to anybody who is from new jersey these days has been a little bit distracted. i grew up in louisiana. we are serve used to this sort of thing, but we don't usually have hurricanes that have a wind chill and snowfall associated with it which sort of complicates matters a bit. so i hope everybody is all right up there this morning. we've been doing this series recently focusing on where are the military service going, a very important point of history. general 40 are now started in the army back during not the last drawdown of the one before that the one after did not.

for those of you who have come to our event know we've been taught about drawdowns for sometime now, eventually it had to get here as we are now at the cusp of one. we don't know how long, how far or how deep but there are a lot of lessons. there's a lot of ways in which it's different than it has never been before historically and we will explore some of those this money. the we will we latest outcome first unlike to make sure you all turn off your cell phones so we have no mr. kris interim -- we have no noisemakers in the olympic will have a short discussion, general odierno will give an address from the podium here. will have a chat on the stage and will open up the floor to questions. in order to maximize the number of questions we can get asked we will ask you to use the notecards. i think they been handed out. if you don't have one, you can reach in and you get when. write your questions and whatever you want. tried to make them readable. hold them up when you are done and people will collecting. we have in front couple of

experts who will assimilate the questions and then they will ask you a tough ones, sir, once they come around at the end. and so that's where we're going to work that. i want to welcome you all again and ask you to please join me in a warm round of welcome for general ray odierno. [applause] >> well, thank you very much. i guess i remembered to turn my off. it's great to be here, have this opportunity. when i first, we thought this be 30, 40, 50 people, got a few more than as i really appreciate everyone coming out today. i want to talk about several things. i will take about 10 minutes, and just give you some of my thoughts. i would want to leave a lot of time for discussion because i think that will be the most beneficial thing for you, and for me, and i don't mind tough questions. those are usually the best you get a chance to answer.

so again, thanks. i want to thank csis who, 50 years have provided valuable strategic insights and appreciate the great work. i want to thank you, he just got off the plane from wrong. he kept telling he was stuck in row but i didn't believe him because rome in the fall, kind of nice. but he really was trying to get back. so i appreciate the effort, sir, as always. david, again thank you so much for taking this on. one of the things that i initially talk about is, as we look to the future, you've got to also try to figure out where we are today how we get to the future. because it's just not about going right from today and you get to the future to get to work your way through a series of timelines and for the commitments that you have. so it always started by reminding everybody that i stand here today, the army has 60,000 soldiers in afghanistan. we have 15,000 soldiers deployed in kuwait, kosovo, philippines, sinai, horn of africa. we have